Buried Treasure; Data Portal Brings Government into Focus

If you heard that public transportation and on-time rates for buses had steadily increased in over the past ten years, you’d think that was a good thing, right? Not so fast, say a group of Stanford University undergraduates and recent alumni who have created California Common Sense, a non-profit that has developed an online portal for visualizing government data and information.

In San Francisco, government spending on MUNI steadily increased between 2001-2010. Likewise, on-time performance for the system also improved.

But here’s the rub: During that same time period, MUNI riders’ level of satisfaction with the system steadily decreased.

Sometimes data can tell a surprising story. Public access to information is an essential component of government transparency, but interpreting and understanding all that data can be daunting, especially for the average citizen.

Using a data visualization software developed by Pat Hanrahan—the Stanford University professor who won two Academy Awards for developing the animation software behind Toy Story and the character of Gollum in Lord of the Rings—the math, engineering and economics students behind California Common Sense have created an interactive data visualization tool that uses publically available data to bring state and municipal budgets to life.

For example, government spending on highways is highest in Wyoming at $886.59 per capita, and lowest in Georgia at $174.76 per capita. By comparison, California came in at $290.33 per capita, and New York state at $246.22.

“The information is out there, but it’s hard to understand and then to figure out what it means,” said Dakin Sloss, a math major in his senior year at Stanford, and the executive director of California Common Sense. “Visualizing data can help us see trends in each of the major areas of government. It’s a good start for asking questions about what government spends, and what we get for it.”